May I Recommend a Documentary: “The Wobblies”

If you want to hear some of the coolest stories that you’ve ever heard from some of the funniest elders that you’ve ever seen then “The Wobblies” is for you. There is so much goodness in this documentary that it’ll put a smile on your face.

The subject matter is the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World, formed in 1905, it’s considered to be one of the most important labor movements in the history of the United States.

The documentary is a testament of sorts from the people that helped to bring us, among many other things, the eight-hour work day. Very relevant for our times considering what our “corporate-state alliances” have been able to achieve in the last few decades.

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“A much more longer term perspective on the economy, which is that the Labor Department reported that the rate of unionization, the percentage of workers in the economy that are members of union, has fallen to a 97-year low of 11.3 percent. Only 11.3 percent of workers are now in unions.

“Now, this has been a long decline in terms of unionization rates, but the decline was accelerated greatly in 2011 and continuing in 2012… So we know that there is this huge assault on working people, on their rights to organize, their rights to defend themselves, their rights to collectively bargain, is happening while the economy is still stuck in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash.”

The Wobblies